My international Thanksgivings have been, I think, my favorites. In the US, where Thanksgiving day so easily turns into a day of obligations, stress and over-eating, the holiday has lost its novelty. It’s bundled into the whole “holiday season” where, as a nation, we worry about our waistlines and hurry to finish the Christmas shopping.

When you celebrate Thanksgiving overseas, it’s something else entirely. Rather than an obligation, it becomes a small moment outside of the daily grind – a special dinner shared among friends. Of course it’s primarily Americans, but over the years there’s been a mix of Germans, Danes, South Africans, Australians, and others who have turned out to help us all celebrate our national holiday.   It is less a day about America, and more a time to celebrate friendship and the lives we’ve carved out for ourselves here in Berlin.

I’ll never forget my first German Thanksgiving. It was only a few weeks after I moved to Berlin, and I’d been lucky enough to land amongst a group of people who quickly became close friends. We were an international group of young, broke, bohemian-artist types, most living far away from our families, and all eager for an excuse to celebrate. The three of us in our flat cooked up a storm (as well as we could manage in a tiny shared kitchen).

We were so low on space that we ended up thawing the bird on the hallway radiator. My friend Vanessa cooked green bean casserole, and when she couldn’t find deep-fried onion crisps in the store, she bravely made her own. Oddly enough, I don’t remember anymore what I cooked.  But the highlight for me was the dish our Danish friends brought – tiny fingerling potatoes boiled in sugar water until the outsides were slightly candied.  Strange, unique, and something I never would have experienced in the States.

This year, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving at my friend Nadahl’s place. He regularly throws dinner parties for our whole motley group of friends, and is a wonderful cook. It’s a running joke between us, though, that my pasta salad beats his every time. (I’m supposed to bring it to Thanksgiving dinner, in fact. And I probably will.) But I’m also bringing my own little surprise – Gingery Onion Chutney.

Several months ago, I somehow wound up with a jar of this in my possession, and since then I’ve been dying to try making more. This weekend I finally had the chance.
The trick with this recipe is to start with way more onions than you think you’ll need, and cook them way longer than you think you should. The result is a pot full of dark brown, carmelized onions with a deep, rich flavor. It tastes amazing with a big chunk of fresh bread and a strongly-flavored cheese.

Gingery Onion Chutney

Start with a pot nearly overflowing with raw onions. This will cook down more than you’d expect, and once you start chopping the onions you might as well keep going.

Ingredients:

5 lbs onions (or as much as will fit in your large cooking pot)
Two thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, or even more if you like
1 Tbs butter
4 Tbs brown sugar
3-4 Tbs apple cider vinegar
1 tsp black pepper, or more to taste
2 tsp salt

1. Chop the onions finely
You can toss them into the pot as they are chopped – it isn’t essential that they go in at the same time, and your cutting board would probably overflow if you were to try it!

2. Grate the Ginger
You can use a fancy ceramic ginger grater if you have one. If not, pull out the trusty cheese grater and use the extra fine side.

3. Seasonings!
Drop the butter in the pot, then sprinkle in the brown sugar, pepper, vinegar, and salt.

4. Make it Marmalade
Cook over very low heat for two to three hours. Stir it more often at the beginning so everything cooks evenly, then every twenty minutes or so for the remainder of the cooking time. The onions will gradually begin to turn dark brown and carmelize. The chutney is finished when it is a rich brown and the onions are completely soft and spreadable.

“Gimme a bottled water, the cognac isn’t working. Never does…”

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Well, no, I didn’t. But after a quick round of internet show-and-tell, I was bouncing up and down saying “I have to do photos of them some day!”

“Wait, wait,” he says. “That’s where I’m going with this…”

He had an assignment shooting a full-day festival for the magazine Biker’s News – including a scheduled interview with the Leningrad Cowboys, a Finnish rock band known for their crazy costumes and crazier hair pieces. He needed a back-up photographer, and a German-English translator for the interview. And that was me.

The Leningrad Cowboys  – who call themselves “the worst rock ‘n roll band in the world, ever” – started out as the now-cult-classic The Leningrad Cowboys do America.  After the film, the band stayed together and kept rocking, Finnish style. And they do rock. Despite being a cover band, which I usually despise. They’re fun. They’re full of energy. And they’re damn good musicians.

And now, without any further ado:

[View with PicLens]

In the last couple of months, I’ve found myself in yet another micro-world within a micro-world. I’ve landed in the world of the Techies. The programmers, designers, creatives, and bloggers who are on the tip of the technological evolution, and are loving every minute of it. The ones fighting for data-protection, who can explain in accurate and complex detail exactly what and where all this “data” is and what could potentially be done with it. The guys and girls who stand around at parties, Twittering about the party and checking their messages to see who might be on the way there.

Tonight I am sitting at an Election Night party taking place after the Atoms and Bits networking conference. The Atoms and Bits conference was a chance for do-it-yourselfers throught Berlin to meet with each other for grass-roots style discussion groups and idea-sharing sessions. The main theme is “do it yourself” – i.e. take control, understand what’s going on around you, and make it what you want it to be. “It” could be anything from a website, to a political campaign, to a self-designed line of clothing.

The attendees are all creative types, and for the most part, heavily teched-out. The conference itself, and the party now, offer free W-Lan connections to anyone with a laptop (or iPhone)… which is most of us here. As I sit here in the gathering dark, I look around and see a sea of laptop screens glowing blue in the twilight, their owners tapping busily away with coding or social networking services.

Here are a few photos of the Election Party, to illustrate my point:

See no evil, hear no evil, code no evil: the three branches of media all together on one bench.

Early in  the evening – the sea of laptops just beginning to build.

An analog relic, still providing the best sound quality to true enthusiasts.

An even more rarely-seen analog artifact – pen and paper!

A workshop participant offers self-made T-shirts and on-the-spot silk screening for blank bags, shirts, etc.

Markus Beckedahl of the blog/political platform Netzpolitik.org

Well-known Twitterer mspro, who also helped to organize the Atoms and Bits conference

Jodi is an extremely creative, crazy, wonderful Australian woman, who’s flair for style has led her to start up a small costuming company here in Berlin. As expected, when the time came, and her belly was large enough to be photogenic, her ideas for her pregnancy photos were nothing short of fantastic. She brought along enough clothes and accessories for several costume changes, and we spent a whole day playing around with ideas. She, the makeup artist, and I had an incredibly relaxed, entertaining, and fun day in the studio.

As luck would have it, every song on the album has a music video – it’s meant to be more of an audio video experience than just a CD. There’s even a book, I found out later.

At any rate, this isn’t meant to be a music review. This is just a build up to explain why I was SO thrilled to find out about a last-minute, donation-only performance by Amanda herself at the All Together Now music conference in Berlin.

It was a small show, just Amanda onstage with a few songs accompanied by a guest musician who lives in Berlin. The “stage” was a small platform only a few inches off the ground, and to give everyone a chance to see the show, Amanda started off by getting the first few rows to sit down on the ground.

I know, it sounds like the beginning of an indie rock concert with soft, gentle, folk melodies. But then Amanda got on the keyboard. And when she gets going on the keyboard, man… she really gets going. I have never before watched someone successfully play keyboard with their elbow, but she managed.

It rocked. The concert rocked. The energy rocked. Oh, and the fact that one of my favorite authors – Neil Gaiman – is her boyfriend, and kindly read us all a short story after the concert… that didn’t hurt either.

Beelitz Heilstaetten, an abandoned hospital complex just outside of Berlin, is a fascinating and hauntingly beautiful landscape of decay and art work.

When I read the words “Lentil and Rice Pilaf,” my taste buds pretty much turn off of their own accord. I can’t help it – in my mind I start tasting every bland batch of lentils and rice I cooked back in my vegan days in college. You know – lentils, rice, a bit of celery and a vegetarian boullion cube? Bland, boring, tastes like cardboard? That’s what I think of when I hear “pilaf.”

But this one is different. This one doesn’t taste like lentils. It tastes like an explosion of tangy lemon, garlic and chilis, tossed with sweet bell pepper, fresh parsley, and crunchy almonds. It tastes like… flavor. I love this.

The blend of seasonings that I use in this recipe was inspired by an incredible pasta salad that a friend of mine brought to a barbecue a few weeks ago. In her original version, which I hope to post soon as a full recipe, chewy potato gnocchi were tossed with a delectable pesto of roasted red bell peppers, almonds, lemon juice, and other spices. I’d actually planned to post that recipe this weekend, but when it came down to it I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand. So I started experimenting with what I did have available, and came up with this flavorful, spicy pilaf.

I would call this a “quick” recipe, as the actual prep work is fairly minimal. The cooking time is about 45 minutes for the rice and lentils, however, so you do need to get it on the stove well before you plan to eat. It would be great with chicken or tofu and maybe a side of green beans to round everything out. I was scooping it up with gluten-free flatbread all afternoon, and I’m still absolutely stuffed hours later.

Lemony, Spicy Lentil and Rice Pilaf
You could go hogwild with the veggies in this recipe – carrots, green onions, heaps more bell peppers – all of those would be delicious added in. Be sure to use brown or “French green” lentils. Don’t use the pink or red ones, as they will turn to mush when cooked.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup brown or French green lentils
2-1/2 cups water
5 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 Tbs salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small, hot chili pod, chopped – or 1/4 tsp. chili flakes
1 Tbs tomato paste

1-2 bell peppers: red, orange or yellow, chopped
1/2 cup chopped tomato
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 large handful almonds, chopped

1. Cooking the grains
Put the rice, lentils, and water in a pot over medium-high heat. Add the lemon juice, salt, garlic, tomato paste and chili. When the water comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cover the pot. Cook for about 45 minutes, until the water is fully absorbed, and remove from heat.

2. Mixing it all together
When the rice and lentils are cooked, let them cool slightly. Stir in the bell peppers, chopped tomato, parsley, and chopped almonds. Serve with chopped almonds as garnish.